During the interview, NPR's John Burnett asked Kelly about the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of immigrants crossing the border into the U.S. without documentation. The policy, which was unveiled by Attorney General Jeff Sessions just four days ago, could separate children from their families if they’re apprehended at the border.

“If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple,” Sessions said during a press conference announcing the policy on Monday, May 7, according to The Hill. Sessions noted that separating children from the families may happen "as required by law.”

Kelly told NPR he agrees with Sessions's move. The retired general claimed that while the “vast majority” of immigrants who cross the border without documentation are “not bad people,” "they're also not people that would easily assimilate into the United States, into our modern society. They're overwhelmingly rural people.”

Kelly’s boss, President Trump, won the presidency in part because of “rural people” who had the right to vote in the 2016 election.

“In the countries they come from, fourth-, fifth-, sixth-grade educations are kind of the norm. They don't speak English; obviously that's a big thing,” Kelly continued, propagating xenophobic beliefs that have marked the Trump era since the presidential campaign. “They don't integrate well; they don't have skills,” he claimed.

This isn’t the first time Kelly has painted undocumented immigrants as unintelligent, an unfounded premise to begin with. In February, he called Dreamers and the beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program “lazy” and “afraid.”

Speaking specifically to the issue of separating families after they've crossed the border (a part of Sessions's May 7 announcement), Kelly said, "It could be a tough deterrent — would be a tough deterrent." He added, "The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever."

In his new NPR interview, Kelly did add that he liked the idea of finding a path to citizenship for the more than 425,000 immigrants who have lived in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS.